Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Cube Card Spotlight: Mirrorweave

Welcome back for another episode of Cube Card spotlight. I'm your host, Plaid Magic and today we'll be discussing a bit of an odd card

Mirrorweave

2(U/W)(U/W)

Instant

Rules Text: Each other creature becomes a copy of target nonlegendary creature until end of turn.The Rundown:

Our subject today I think is best described as one of the most unique combat tricks in the history of magic. I didn't say best, that's up for debate, but it is indeed unique. turning your Lingering Souls tokens into your opponents Grave Titan or Wurmcoil Engine can literally end the game. This card has been the cause of some of the most interesting board states I have seen, and is very often the last spell cast in a game. I personally consider this card the opposition to Wrath of God. This card is a blowout card for wide strategies for 4CMC, while wrath is a blowout for controllish build, especially when facing a wide strategy. I have also used this as a wrath before by targeting a Master of Waves Token, which had the advantage of killing an opposing Keranos.

TL:DR

Power Level:

Unpowered fun card

Cube Tutor Stats as of Today (9/14/2015):

Pick: 2032

Pass: 16798

Pick Percent: 10.79%

Cube Count: 575 - (that's not many, lol)

Collective Pros:

Fun instant speed combat trick

Offensive/Defensive Blowout

Collective Cons:

Hard to gauge, but relatively high mana cost

Effective usage requires some play time

Swap/Compare

Polymorphist's Jest: On Defense

Dragonshift: Also a blowout when overloaded

Mirror Entity: Similar support for wide strategies.

Verdict:

A versatile combat trick for a non-powered cube that requires some skill to navigate. Generally, the card does not match its color pairing's strategy, and may have just as well been costed (2)(W)(W), it does play well in the decks that play it. This card's power level is heavily dependent on the boards states your cube creates, but can be very fun to discover its "best play". Though not to be used specifically as a "mass pump" effect, this is not a card for a playgroup that dislikes combat tricks or finds them to be underpowered.

The Discussion

I run this in my tier 2 cube, and it is an all star in the format. It is a trick, but when cast during combat, it is often an overrun. In a pinch, it can be a counter or kill spell.This card really depends on the board states your cube creates. If your cube leaves a ton of guys on the battlefield, then this will find a way to shine. The effect is too powerful not to. If yours is the cube that often wins with one or two creature win cons and some planeswalkers, this is a pass.My verdict is to try it in a planeswalkerless cube.One final note: you will need someone with judge level rules knowledge to explain all the potential interactions.

I don't really have anything to comment about this card other than it seems far and away from being playable in just about any cube list that is looking to optimize powerful cards and I could list 10 cards off the top of my head that would be better in Azorius than this card. You generally have 4-7 cards at your disposal per guild and I can't imagine any unpowered list wanting this in that selection.And honestly, that's downside enough for me to not even discuss the card in length.

I'm not surprised by your evaluation, but I would disagree, though, only because we have been running it since the beginning of our cube. It is often actually a pretty early pick, played pretty often in White/Red or White/Green tokens more often than it is played in an Azorius build. As mentioned above, it is very often the last spell played, because you have a ton of options. In any build that goes wide, this card is crazy. I can't think of many 4CMC spells that can end the game, usually by T5.Just a quick edit: just ran though our cube records (maybe we are just crazy), but this card has only been sideboarded once in the last year, it has otherwise always been maindecked.

To each their own. I can say with confidence that combat tricks like this would not interest my group (Vines of Vastwood is actually the last straight up combat trick in my list and it's on its way out) and a card like this would end up being dead last in each draft.It (and its ilk) strike me as woefully underpowered when we're looking at cards like Ojutai, Supreme Verdict, Sphinx's Rev. on the upper end and even if we're discussing "low power" Azorius cards, I would look to steer the color pair towards fliers with cards like Aven Mimeomancer, Lyev Skyknight or Thunderclap Wyvern since those would be in line with what the color pair can alternately be suited for. (UW Fliers)I mean, your cube certainly has a distinct quirky uniqueness to it (This isn't an insult, it's a compliment) so a spell like this might be right at home there but it would never sit right in mine, even at 720 cards.

Unpowered cubes vary greatly in style. It could. It obviously wouldn't be a good fit in yours, as it doesn't seem like the players who play yours are interested in it's mechanic, but not taking the time to explore it's merits 'in a vacuum' (sort of, I mean... as much as possible? lol) on the internet is very different than this.But yes, from the sounds of it it's certainly unplayable in your cube. Or at the very least, it would be a low pick due to player bias.

I mean, I'd rather have a similar style of effect tacked on a creature and I prefer that effect to be asymmetrical. You get great mileage out of Mirror Entity (starting on turn 4) and also from Jazal Goldmane (starting on turn 5) in the same deck that could theoretically want this card and those come with a creature attached and don't require something like a fat opponent creature on the ground and you to be on fliers.It might fit somewhere, but it seems like you're wasting a spell slot for something that's very conditional (and I do mean very conditional) when you could instead be running a consistent card that's just great no matter the situation.

So I think "very" is "very" harsh. It may not work the best in your cube, but I think you may be looking at this card with a bit of tunnel vision. The above comment that this should be classified as a white card is probably correct. Also, this does not require an opposing bomb. This most often is used in a Boros build, and as such it has a lot of options. When I have Mirrorweave in hand, I am most often not having trouble finding a fantastic target, its mostly trying to hold it for the right moment for the best scenario. So, in red/white, some GREAT common creatures that this can target that you would have in your own deck that creates a crazy swing/win or just some good tempo gain would be Ash Zealot, Borderland Maurader, Plated Geopede, Soltari Champion (off the top of my head) just for creatures that cost less than 4 cmc. You also have the opponent bomb option, as well as a slew of creatures 4 CMC and above in those colors. I definitely understand you critisism, especially based on cube context, but I think this is much more flexible than you are suggesting. That said, we run a 50% creatures cube, so we have a ton more options than most.

KengyYeah, pretty much agree with this. I know it was included 5ish years ago in some cubes, but quickly was replaced by the glut of amazing UW cards that have been released since.

I've got Mirrorweave in my 4 player Political cube. It has some super duper fun applications such as Mirrorweave everything into Bronze Bombshell, then Cultural Exchange two opponents so they all go kaBOOM.

I don't really have time to make an in depth comment, but my gripe is that it's very dependent on drawn out games with big board states and the hoping that someone will play a bomb while you have a large number of creatures. It seems like it would be best (if it were in both U and W) in a 3 color deck or some aggro/token strategy. It's an interesting effect and if you had it as a pet card in a typical powered/high unpowered cube no one would have a problem, but as a mainboard it is just too entirely dependent on other cards in an unclear archetype to be just flat out added.Verdict: pet card in a higher powered cube, with blowout potential in the right deck, but would likely not be played in favor of more consistent utility effects (removal, creatures, tokens, etc.).

There is no doubt that it is super fun. It was even more super fun when damage stacked first before it resovled - similar to Ghostway.However it is really tooooo narrow to consider for any cube i think.

So, I guess this may only be a serious consideration for a heavy creature cube (50%) like ours? I feel like this doesn't pass the vacuum test, but in reality its actually quite good in any W/X tokens build. I challenge you all too try this if you have a white core tokens build, but in the meantime, I will adjust the eval based in the feedback here, which has been pretty bad overall. What I will say is that I co-manage a cube with @crow13th, who is very much a statistical tactician, and I provide the jank. Of the 5 cards I forced him to add to our cube that were not "the best card" for the context of our cube, a year later Mirrorweave is the only one that remains. He has, based on the feedback of our players agreed that Mirrorweave is a very powerful AND fun card, and would not consider replacing it. I would suggest cube builders who have some skew towards a creature based cube to try this out and see how it goes, but I will give this review the near unanimous thumbs down for now.

I used to run this. It was mediocre/useless a lot of the time, and a hilarious blowout sometimes. Not really what I want from a guild card.I'd say the highlight of this one's tenure was the game my opponent went Bird into Hero of Bladehold, then lethal'd me turn 4 on the play. That's really more to do with Hero being insane, but I remember my buddy doing a lot of thinking before announcing "Fuck it... 20 damage your face?"I've never been so confused to be dead.

Yep, had a player playing it in a control deck with a batterskull germ as his only creature, targeted the germ and it wiped out all but one creature on the other side. Work well in a deck with spear of heliod